Christer's Blog

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

The Facebook Factor, Scientology, and a Piece of the Blue Sky

An enormous amount of people not only uses Facebook, but also believes that it is actually a tangible and valuable asset, solid enough to value it at 100 times its annual profit. It reminds me of Scientology - inflate x 100,000 the low count of people actually really interested enough to pay for the "Teachings" (Scientology) / "Coolness" (Facebook), then sell it to a few celebrities (Scientology) / Mutual Funds (Facebook) that have the resources to pay for the inflated value and hope that enough common people are stupid enough to buy a Piece of the Blue Sky. In the case of Scientology that did not work so well, but Facebook, well, you guys are good.

In my work with a very tangible, yet still to some degree questionable new technology called ATN or Podcars, I am even happier today that I am able to see real value measurable in travel times, construction costs, low emissions and almost no accidents per passenger miles at all. I wish there were more energy put into real issues such as dysfunctional transportation systems - Imagine what hundreds of billions could do to a sustainable solar transportation system free of CO2!. I am the eternal optimist and believe that real care of the world we live in will eventually take precedent over yuppie wannabe billionaires and that the coolest thing in Silicon Valley is actually to change the world and not the car you put on the corporate parking lot at Google/Facebook/Apple (take your pick).